Mocking the Crucifixion, Again

It doesn't say much for the health of the art world when the only way artists can get noticed is by taking hallowed Christian images and mocking them.

ROME (Zenit) - In the northern Italian town of Bolzano, the Museion Museum decided to get some attention by displaying a work called "Feet First" by German Martin Kippenberger.The four-foot installation shows a bright green frog in a loincloth, nailed to a cross through its hands, with its tongue hanging out of its mouth. One hand holds a beer mug and the other, an egg.

That this object was deemed "art" has much to do with British-Iraqi collector Charles Saatchi who showed the work at his gallery in London. The same Saatchi also promoted the image of "The Virgin Mary with Elephant Dung" in the "Sensations" show of 2000.

Of course, there may be something about Italy that makes the anti-Christians go into overdrive. Adel Smith, the Muslim activist who chose Italy as his home, denounced the presence of crucifixes in schools, while the pop star Madonna chose Rome as the site of her own pretend-crucifixion on a mirrored cross.

It doesn't say much for the health of the art world when the only way artists can get noticed is by taking hallowed Christian images and mocking them.Franz Pahl, who runs the regional government of Alto Adige in northern Italy, objected to the work of art with a by going on a hunger strike, but the museum board decided to leave the work.

Claudio Strinati, who alas, serves as superintendent of the artistic patrimony of Rome, defended the work with the trite and tired slogan, "Art must always be free." He seems to have forgotten that Leonardo, Raphael and Botticelli were not "free" to paint whatever they liked. The numerous rejected works by Caravaggio inform us that when he painted what he liked, his work wasn't shown in public.

Benedict XVI even weighed in, writing that the work had "offended the religious feelings of many people who consider the cross a symbol of God's love and of our redemption." News services gleefully leapt to attention, vying to invent the cleverest headlines, while the Museion collected more and more ticket sales.

The New York Times, with its proverbial insensitivity to all things Christian, ran the headline "Crucified Frog Sculpture Troubles the Pope," making it sound as if the Pontiff were the one with a problem, suffering from an overly constrictive case of moral party-pooperism.

Imagine what the headline would read if someone presented as "art" a bright yellow stuffed lemming with a Star of David on its chest and a number tattooed on its forearm, and titled it "They All Followed."

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Or if someone made a collage using the faces of the victims of 9/11 to make an airplane crashing into a toilet?
No newspaper or gallery owner would be crying out about artistic freedom, and no one would blame interest groups for protesting in outrage.

In the face of this hypocrisy, why does the Pope even bother? Why does he ask Madonna to refrain from her self-crucifixion or the Museion to remove the offensive work? Is it because he wishes to regain some papal authority over temporal affairs like in the good old days? Or does he really think that that the souls of Madonna or the Museoin board are going to be awakened by his protests? Of course not, although he undoubtedly prays for their conversions.

He's not talking to them, after all, he is talking to us --those of us who have the grace to see and understand what the crucifix means to Christianity. We can remember how Christ was mocked even on the way to his death, and know that the battle against evil is just as bitter now as it was then.

Those who have been granted the gift of recognizing Christ as Lord and Savior must uphold and defend the dignity of Christ's sacrifice. Though there is nothing innovative about scorning the cross, we shouldn't just shrug our shoulders or roll our eyes.

We should avoid these shows, concerts, CDs or movies. Christians number some 1.3 billion in the world, and without our patronage, these products will cease. The Museion's gods are changeable ones, transforming faces with the economic tides; our God is constant.

Compared to the artistic giants of years past, men like Kippenberger seem mere fleas, and the agents who hock their work and defend their "freedom," are like the rats that convey their plague from place to place.

Then as now, in the mayhem that follows a plague, it's always the Church that is left to pick up the pieces.

Elizabeth Lev teaches Christian Art and Architecture at Duquesne University's Italian campus. She can be reached at lizlev@zenit.org.